Bill Dehring was seventeen when he first bused tables at Boder’s on the River. He’s in his sixties now, and he still walks the dining room most Friday nights, stopping at tables he’s stopped at for thirty years. That continuity is part of what makes this place different from most supper clubs in Kenosha County.
Boder’s sits along the Pike River on Sheridan Road in Pleasant Prairie, just south of the Kenosha city line — close enough that half the regulars are from Kenosha proper. The building is old in the right ways: low ceilings, wood paneling, windows that look out over the water. It doesn’t try to look like anything other than what it is.
The Friday fish fry is the reason most people show up. Boder’s does both lake perch and cod, and the perch is the one to get — lightly battered, fried clean, served with a cup of coleslaw and rye bread. A full perch dinner runs around $18 to $22 depending on the market, and portions aren’t small. The clam chowder, served on Fridays, is thick without being heavy, made in-house. The relish tray comes out before you’ve looked at the menu, the way it’s supposed to.
On non-Friday nights, the menu skews toward classic supper club: prime rib on weekends, a rotating soup, walleye, shrimp. The old-fashioneds are built the traditional Wisconsin way — brandy, muddled fruit, a splash of Squirt or soda water, served in a rocks glass without ceremony. They’re $7 or $8 and worth it.
Dehring took over ownership from an earlier family and has kept the food and atmosphere deliberately close to what they were. That’s not laziness or lack of imagination — it’s a considered choice. When I asked him once why he hadn’t updated the dining room, he said something like, “People who come here on their anniversary come back because it still looks the same as when they got engaged.” That’s about as clear a business philosophy as you’ll hear.
The staff turnover is low, which matters. Some of the servers have been here fifteen or twenty years. They remember that the couple in the corner booth always splits the perch, that the guy by the window takes his old-fashioned light on the fruit. That kind of institutional memory isn’t something you can build in two years.
Fridays get busy, especially in fall and winter when the fish fry crowd is at its most loyal. Plan on a wait if you show up between 6 and 7:30 without a reservation. Call ahead or arrive early — they open at 5 on Fridays. Parking is easy; there’s a lot off the main entrance.
This isn’t a place that photographs especially well or generates buzz on food apps. It’s a place where people go because it’s reliable, honest, and rooted in something real. Boder’s has been feeding Kenosha-area families long enough that it’s become part of how some people mark time — graduations, retirements, the first dinner out after a hard year. Bill Dehring didn’t set out to build a landmark. He just kept showing up, and so did everybody else.
